Our World on Fire

16 August 2018

Recent government energy-policy decisions - such as changing planning rules, so local councils have no say about fracking in their communities - have shown the Tories are not serious about global warming and the Climate Crisis.

Yet last week’s report from the Stockholm Resilience Centre underlines precisely why the government SHOULD be serious about human-driven global warming. This report warns that, as a result of the continuing massive burning of fossil fuels, we are on the edge of becoming a dangerous ‘hothouse’ world.

This report links with recent front-page reports - which even appeared in the tabloid papers! - about how the global ‘killer heatwave’ was ‘setting our world on fire.’

But the Tories are still putting the short-term greed of giant transnational corporations and the 1% above the welfare of the 99% and the very survival of our living world!

They are fully aware fracking will release far more carbon than we can afford - IF we are to avoid catastrophic Climate Breakdown. Yet they want to push fracking out across the UK - including in Cumbria.

This is despite knowing that fracking uses incredible amounts of water (so domestic consumers mustn’t use hosepipes, just to make sure the frackers have all they need!); and that fracking often triggers earthquakes.

In fact, in 2011, exploratory drilling in Lancashire set off small earthquakes, the shockwaves of which were felt in Cumbria - but this government now wants to bury toxic nuclear waste under the Lake District! Even though storing nuclear waste above ground - as well as providing more long-term local jobs at Sellafield - is much safer than burying it.

The government’s fundamentalist commitment to neoliberalism means they refuse to acknowledge what the vast majority of earth and climate scientists are telling us.

Plans to add ‘ecocide’ to the UN’s list of crimes against humanity are now well underway. If they push our living planet into Climate Breakdown, they may well find themselves in front of the International Criminal Court.

However, we can’t afford to wait for that - we must start pressing all our elected representatives to stand up for the people of Cumbria - and for our planet!

They must tell the government to: • ditch plans to make fracking a permitted development• scrap any idea of burying nuclear waste under the LDNP

Individuals can also take positive steps by:• switching to renewable energy firms (such as Ecotricity) that never use fracked gas • eating more plant-based food, and less meat & dairy